The Kansas University Endowment Program for Minority Students main goals are to attract more minority students (including all those in the Greater Kansas City area, which may be Kansas or Missouri residents), and increase the number of competitive minority students who matriculate at the University of Kansas by offering merit based scholarships. Further, the Endowment fund would enable us to strengthen our academic support services, retention activities and thereby improve progression rates for minority students. This would result in reducing the debt burden after graduation and hopefully enhance student esteem and future success. This program will build on and assist in the institution's ongoing mission to build capacity and research infrastructure, primarily focusing on minority health disparities research and health disparities of other special populations. We will leverage all opportunities to assist in the enhancement of disparities research, the development, teaching and modeling of cultural and linguistic competency, and the recruitment, retention and academic development of minority faculty.